THE grandmother of criminal neglect victim Chloe Valentine has called for an elite unit of mental health specialists and experienced social workers to investigate high-risk cases as part of an overhaul of Families SA.

Belinda Valentine, speaking out for the first time since Chloe’s death, also says the trouble-plagued Families SA should split from the Education Department.

Ms Valentine, 48, said inexperienced Families SA social workers and a faulty system failed to identify that her only daughter and Chloe’s mother, Ashlee Polkinghorne, was a highly intelligent woman and master actor who “lacked empathy for everybody’’.

She does not blame the well-meaning Families SA workers for her granddaughter’s death — those responsible are in jail, she said — but says a lack of proper investigation cost Chloe her life.

“I’m not an expert in this, I’m a family member who has gone through some really horrific stuff and it (the sorrow) is going to last my whole life,’’ she said.

“It’s horrendous to think what more could I have done, what could I have done better?

“When you realise you actually exhausted all that you could have done, it brings you to a point where you say to authorities, ‘don’t give us another bandaid’.

Chloe Valentine died after repeatedly falling off a motorbike.

“We’re mature enough to understand this system is complex, it’s complicated and it’s broken.

“We need to go through the pain of restructuring it so that it can heal. Put another bandaid on it and it stays broken.’’

Ms Valentine is advocating for a strict “two strikes’’ system to flag potential safety dangers for children in care, to replace a system that relies on the opinions of inexperienced case workers who are open to manipulation by cunning parents.

After two red flags, psychiatrists or psychologists would determine the needs of each family member and recommend care to protect children at risk of harm, such as Chloe, who died in the care of Ashlee, 23, and her then partner Benjamin McPartland, 29, in January 2012.

Ms Valentine said more than a dozen family or friends offered to take Chloe and keep her safe from abuse. Families SA has admitted recording 22 warnings from family saying Chloe was in danger.

Polkinghorne and McPartland will serve at least four years in jail after admitting to manslaughter — following an incident in which Chloe repeatedly fell from a motorbike while in their care — but the four-year-old died needlessly, Ms Valentine said.

“If there has been a red flag ... that should be investigated much more deeply because these are vulnerable children,” she said.

“If a person is flagged again, that should be a massive warning sign and that (child) should be taken out of the system and (the family) investigated further.

“The important thing is to identify what the problem is and in Chloe’s case, Chloe was never the problem, Ashlee was the problem and they didn’t ever identify that.

Benjamin McPartland, right, leaves the District Court with his new partner, who is not Ashlee Polkinghorne.Source: News Corp Australia

“If they had said to her, she needed major psychological counselling, that’s what we’ve identified, she would have had a choice in that and in the meantime, make Chloe safe.

“That needs to be decided by a psychologist or psychiatrist, not by the social worker in charge of that case.’’

Ms Valentine said she had had problems with her daughter’s behaviour since she was aged four and Ashlee has since been diagnosed with a major personality disorder. Ashlee had Chloe at 16 but Ms Valentine had no legal rights over either of them.

They kept in touch as Ashlee regularly moved between suburbs and took advantage of the welfare system that was there to support her.

“They threw a lot of money at her, she received a lot of support money-wise but it wasn’t the support she needed,’’ Ms Valentine said.

“She gladly took the money but she believed they were interfering every other time.

“She was very aggressive to us unless the social workers were there and she played them for all she was worth. These were very inexperienced social workers.

“I know Ashlee is very manipulative; I believe other people are very manipulative and I believe that’s a major problem (for social workers).’’

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